The New York policeman acquitted of acting as a lookout while his partner raped a woman in her apartment was jailed today for two months.

Franklin Mata, 29, will spend 60 days in prison after a judge labelled him ‘forever disgraced’ and rapped him for lying during the sensational ‘rape cops’ trial in Manhattan earlier this year.

He will remain free until an appeal hearing over the jailing for official misconduct on September 12 and it comes just two days after Mata’s partner Kenneth Moreno, 43, was sent to prison for one year.

Also jailed: Franklin Mata, 29, will spend 60 days in prison after a judge labelled him 'forever disgraced' and rapped him for lying during the sensational 'rape cops' trial in Manhattan earlier this year

Moreno and Mata were both acquitted of rape and burglary charges after they returned to a drunk woman’s flat in Manhattan three times after helping her out of a taxi in December 2008.

‘I didn't think that one night would end up costing me two-and-a-half years of my life and my career,’ he told Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Gregory Carro.

‘I never meant for anyone to get hurt that night,’ Mata said, pleading that he would avoid jail over the incident involving the young fashion executive, who now lives in San Francisco, California.

Judge Carro told him: ‘Forever you will be a disgraced police officer’. He added that Mata ‘drew the short straw’ when he was partnered with Moreno, reported the New York Post.

‘I didn't think that one night would end up costing me two-and-a-half years of my life and my career. I never meant for anyone to get hurt that night. I loved my job and worked hard to get where I was, and now it's all gone'

Franklin Mata

The judge said his reasoning for the lower sentence than Moreno was because Mata is a young man whose future was ruined by his partner and he had received strong letters of support.

Meanwhile Moreno has also been allowed to remain free pending appeal - even though he was already on his way to Rikers Island prison by the time he heard, reported the New York Post.

Defence lawyer Chad Seigel, who was told off by the judge earlier in the case for comparing a woman’s genitals to a ‘Venus fly trap’, said of Moreno: ‘He’s not going anywhere’.

Moreno will also return to court on September 12 so a trial can be set out for when a small amount of seized heroin was allegedly found in his police locker shared with another officer.

Convicted: Kenneth Moreno, left, pictured with defence lawyer Chad Seigel, and his colleague Franklin Mata had been summoned to help the drunken woman get out of a taxi in December 2008

On Monday Moreno was labelled a corrupt liar who thought he was 'above the law' by prosecutors as he was sentenced.

‘For some reason you continued to carry your partner's bags throughout the trial. Your testimony - clearly (it) wasn't wholly truthful. Maybe (Moreno's lawyer Joseph Tacopina) was referring to you when he said “simpleton”. Maybe you are the simpleton following the fox. I don't hold you in the same light as your co-defendant'

Judge Gregory Carro

'You're a trained police officer,' Judge Carro told him. 'It's not too far a stretch to believe that you couldn't avoid being in that bed with a naked female.

'Your testimony was classic for admitting what you couldn’t deny, denying what you couldn’t admit and classic tailoring of your testimony to the witnesses who testified before you.'

'You were in bed with an intoxicated naked young woman - that is official misconduct.’

The woman wanted to make a victim statement during proceedings, but the judge refused as she is now not legally a victim after Moreno and Mata were acquitted of rape.

Both Moreno and Mata were fired from the police department within hours of their convictions for official misconduct in May.

Caught on camera: CCTV footage shows the two police men outside the woman's apartment

Some jurors said later that they had too much doubt to convict in a rape case with an accuser who acknowledged her memories were spotty - and without DNA evidence implicating the officers.

Mata and Moreno met the woman after a taxi driver called for help getting her out of his cab.

She told authorities she passed out and awoke to being raped in her bed, saying she acutely remembered being violated despite being unclear on significant parts of the night.

She secretly recorded a conversation days later in which Moreno alternately denied they had sex but said 'yes' twice when she asked whether he had used a condom. He said he was trying to mollify her.

The former officers acknowledged returning to her apartment three times without telling dispatchers or supervisors what they were doing - the genesis of their misconduct convictions.

Evidence: The woman described in court how she remembered being raped on the night in December 2008

In fact, Moreno admitted he even placed a phony 911 call about a sleeping vagrant to provide a pretext for one of the visits.

The officers said she had asked them to come back and check on her, and Moreno said he felt impelled to give her advice about drinking and to comfort her.

He said she made advances and he ultimately ended up cuddling with the barely dressed woman in her bed, but that they didn't have sex. Mata said he was sleeping on her sofa while the others were in the bedroom.

She said after the verdict her 'world was turned upside-down by the actions of two police officers who were sent there to protect but instead took advantage of their authority and broke the law.'

The case ignited protests from women's advocates, who saw it as a discouraging example of the difficulty women face in coming forward with a sexual assault complaint.